Dr Elroy Dearn
Marcella Brassett from Democracy in Colour argues the national anti-racism strategy cannot be just another tick-a-box, saying “Black, Indigenous and People of Colour (BIPOC) have done our bit for diversity and inclusion ‘way out’ for white people with power. We need to act on every level to make Australia a safe place to live, work, build families and futures for everyone, not just Anglos.”
Read MoreThis article by Jennifer Browne (@DrJennBrowne), Jill Gallagher (@jillgal11942623) and colleagues demonstrates how to adopt a strengths-based approach in research about First Nations children’s health, and also shows us how to write about research in a strengths-based and respectful way. Their research highlights the links between physical health and social/emotional wellbeing, and individual health and community wellbeing. Originally published in The Conversation.
Read MoreGlobally 5% of people live with severe mental illness which includes schizophrenia, other psychotic disorders and bipolar disorder. Antipsychotic medication is the main treatment option and whilst helpful in controlling psychotic symptoms, they can cause debilitating side-effects. This may lead individuals to abruptly stop medication, without the knowledge of clinicians, which for many increases the likelihood of relapsing.
Read MoreInnovation is at the heart of plans to reform adult social care across the four UK nations. In this blog, Nuffield Foundation POST Fellow, Katherine Davis explains that conversations with people who have experience of adult social care are vital to effective innovation.
Read MoreThe lack of public acknowledgement of sexual violence against women and children during the first month of UK lockdown could have long-term implications not only for individuals but for the services put in place to support them, a group of UK experts have argued in an article published by the Journal of Gender-Based Violence.
Read MoreThe Royal Commission into Family Violence found that appropriate supports for children and young people experiencing family violence were lacking. In a new report just released by Melbourne City Mission, the shortfalls and gaps are explored in depth, along with recommendations for strengthening the service response in ways appropriate for young people. Today’s analysis is a summary of key findings provided by co-authors Shorna Moore of Melbourne City Mission (@MelbCityMission) and Tanya Corrie (@TanyaCorrie) of Corrie Consulting. You can access the full report here: Amplify: Turning up the Volume on Young People and Family Violence.
Read MoreOver half of the people in Australian prisons have been incarcerated before, which means that interventions to help people stay out of prisons are crucial. If people find employment after they are released, they are less likely to return to prison. Here Dr Caroline Doyle, Dr Sophie Yates, Professor Lorana Bartels, Dr Helen Taylor and Associate Professor Anthony Hopkins discuss their research into the employment experiences of people released from prison in the ACT.
Read MoreYoung people with lived experience of self-harm or suicidal behaviour should be at the forefront of designing, evaluating and implementing suicide prevention research.
You name it. As a suicide prevention researcher I have heard it all…by funders, ethics committees, Higher Education Health and Safety committees to name a few.
In this blog, I (Dr Maria Michail) share my experience of working in partnership with young people with lived experience of self-harm and suicidal behaviour to co-design of a guide titled “Visiting your General Practitioner: A guide for young people with lived experience of self-harm and suicidality”.
Read MoreOn the beautifully manicured courts of Wimbledon each summer, the shining image of tennis is on display. Superstars like Serena Williams, Naomi Osaka, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic grace the crowd with their athletic prowess and earn significant financial rewards from the tournament, as well as through sponsorship deals from some of the world’s most recognized brands. However, this illusion contrasts starkly from the lived experience reality of most professional players.
Read MoreThis post by Lisa Bortolotti is a re-post in a series of posts on a project on agency and youth mental health funded by the Medical Research Council and led by Rose McCabe at City University, UK. Lisa is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Birmingham, affiliated with the Department of Philosophy and the Institute for Mental Health. In this post she answers four questions about her work on agency in youth mental health.
Read MoreThe evidence has been well publicised: young people who have spent their formative years in public care are less likely than their peers to be in gainful employment, and more likely to become homeless, to become involved in crime or prostitution or to become long-term dependent on the state. A closer inspection of the data tends to reveal a much more nuanced picture: a small group of care leavers are ‘movers on’ who achieve educational, employment and wellbeing outcomes that are similar to those of their peers in the general population. A much larger group are survivors: they enter care significantly behind their peers in key areas of development and although, given the right support, they make progress, it takes time to narrow the gap, and their achievements, occurring relatively late in life, often go unrecognised. Only a relatively small group of care leavers fit the stereotype and struggle with very poor outcomes.
Nevertheless, we need to understand why, despite more evidence of success than is often acknowledged, the transition to adulthood from care can be problematic for too many young people who have been the responsibility of the state. In this blog, Harriet Ward and Mike Stein explore the transitions from care to adulthood through exploring historical narratives.
Read More‘Competition’ is often seen as a major driver of quality and efficiency in social care markets. But a team from the University of Melbourne conducted a study into the effect of competition on a range of nursing home quality and price measures, and found no evidence that competition increases quality of care, and only a weak association between competition and price. In today’s post, originally published on the Conversation, Ou Yang, Anthony Scott, Jongsay Yong and Yuting Zhang report on their findings.
Read MoreAlastair Stark, Nivek Thompson (@NivekKThompson) and Greg Marston argue that public deliberation can lead to better policy design by offering something more dynamic than a ‘snapshot’ of public opinion: it can show policymakers how citizens think and justify their decisions.
Read MoreThe Commission for the Human Future (@HumanFutureAU) recently held a groundbreaking webinar on Catastrophic Risk and the Public Good: Toward our Human Future. Hosted by Dr Arnagretta Hunter (@cbr_heartdoc) - a cardiologist and the Human Futures Fellow in the College of Health and Medicine at ANU and chair of the Commission - and featuring Dr Luke Kemp, an expert in catastrophic risk now based at Cambridge, and Dr Millie Rooney from Australia reMADE, the discussion addressed two big themes: threats to humanity and what matters for people in their lives. The conclusions were that community is central to our human future, and that catastrophic risks like climate change, nuclear war and artificial intelligence can be reduced through better democratic representation, through better economics and through a deliberate acknowledgement of the value of caring and importance of community. In today’s post, Dr Hunter explores key lessons from the webinar and explains why the best hope for a better human future lies in concerted effort.
Read MoreToday’s post from Janet Hunt questions the extension of the Cashless Debit Card to more people receiving income support in Australia in light of its problematic evaluation. Associate Professor Hunt is a former president of ANTaR, a member of ANTaR ACT, and researcher at the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research. Her research has focussed on Indigenous governance, government engagement with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, and community development over many years. This post was originally published on the ANTaR website.
Read MoreQualitative longitudinal research can make a distinctive contribution to social policy discussions and to the assessment of outcomes. In today’s post, Jane Millar, Professor of Social Policy at the University of Bath, draws on longitudinal research with lone-parent families to illustrate how change and continuity can look different over shorter and longer time periods, and to explore some of the challenges of engaging in policy debates with qualitative data. The post was originally published on The Social Policy Blog, the companion blog to the Journal of Social Policy, Social Policy and Society and the Journal of International and Comparative Social Policy.
Read MorePRIMARY CARE NETWORKS (PCNs) were introduced across England in July 2019, bringing together groups of general practices, along with community providers, to develop new services for patients. These networks respond to a need for better integration of health and social care services and issues of sustainability in primary care.
Read MoreThere is increasing cross-sectoral unease about the mental health impact of COVID-19 and the lockdown put in place to combat it. A recent commentary in the Lancet suggested that “suicide is likely to become a more pressing concern as the pandemic spreads and has longer-term effects on the general population, the economy, and vulnerable groups” (Gunnell et al. 2020). While a relationship between COVID and suicide is not clearly established, Dr Anna Lavis argues that the key to forging understandings of their potentially complex connections is an attention to the many suicide-related discussions currently happening on social media.
Read MoreThe Productivity Commission’s 2018 report on the community sector reported that productivity failings within the sector were failing people experiencing hardship. In today’s post, David Tennant of Family Care suggests that this conclusion should be revisited in light of the policy changes instituted in response to COVID-19.
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